Despite the fact that I renounced Christianity years ago, this story made me slightly proud that my 1-year-old self was doused with holy water (according to my older family, I resisted the rituals of the church back then as well) at a little church in a Chicago suburb called Saint Mary’s.

I say that after reading about the amazing life and work of Mother Mary Lange.For Harriettells us:

“Lange was born Elizabeth Clarisse Lange circa 1784 in Cuba. In the early 1800’s, Lange moved to Baltimore, Maryland, a safe haven for Catholics, to be with fellow French-Speaking Catholic Refugees. Upon moving to the United States, Lange recognized the need of education among refugee children of color, and on July 2nd, 1829 Lange along with three other women founded the order. The Sisters while educating the youth, provided homes for orphans, sheltered the elderly and took care of the terminally ill. The order also found St. Frances Academy, which is still in operation today.”

After a lifetime dedicated to engaging the underrepresented in education and sustenance, Mother Mary Lange is still leaving her mark over 100 years later. While not the first saint of African descent, if canonization is completed, Mother Mary Lange could make history as the first African American saint. (There is currently another African American woman from New Orleans who is also in the process of canonization.) This process is time consuming and complex.

“Lange’s posthumous move to her founding church is one of the first steps in the long road to sainthood. This move will allow her body to be worshipped and viewed by persons. However, this is not the first step made in the name of Lange to become a saint.

The first petition for canonization came in 1991 when the Vatican launched an investigation into her works. Cardinal William H. Keller, Archbishop of Baltimore at the time, finished the investigation in 2004, and sent it to the Vatican.

The next step is to have an investigation into the potential saints writing by the Vatican to make sure there is nothing heretical. Once this is gathered it is submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

After this, the potential saint will be determined if they lived a life of heroic value. If they did, they will be declared Venerable. Once accepted as Venerable, the next step is beatification, or a miracle must be done in the potential saints name, and must be verified by the Church. The final step is to have another miracle declared in their name. Once the second miracle is verified, there is a formal declaration of sainthood.

Currently, the next step in Mother Mary Lange’s canonization is proof she lived a “heroic life”, which is being written by Vatican official, Brother Reginald Cruz.”

Mother Mary Lange’s story is inspirational across faith lines and reminds me of the transformative capacity of service and a genuine love for humanity.

Feministing's resident "sexpert", Sesali is a published writer and professional shit talker. She is a queer Black girl, fat girl, and trainer. She was the former Training Director at the United States Student Association and later a member of the Youth Organizing team at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She received her bachelors in Women's and Gender Studies from Depaul University in 2012 and is currently pursuing a master's in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. A self identified "trap" feminist, and trained with a reproductive justice background, her interests include the intersections of feminism and: pop culture, youth culture, social media, hip hop, girlhood, sexuality, race, gender, and Beyonce. Sesali joined the team in 2010 as one of the winners of our So You Think You Can Blog contest.

To be quite sure, the murderous DDS was indeed responsible for a stunning tragedy: killing a beloved lion in a Zimbabwe national park and then beheading him for the sake of a trophy. The bloody practise drips with ugly anachronisms, from being a shabby and pathetic display of masculine prowess that demonstrates the ultimate poverty of manhood as an idea, to the colonialist overtones of a white man paying 50,000 dollars to fly to an African nation and turn some of its endangered fauna into a ...

On July 9, 28-year-old Sandra Bland of Naperville, Ill., drove to Texas to start a new job at her alma mater, Prairie View A&M. On July 10, police stopped Bland just outside the campus for allegedly failing to signal while changing lanes. Police claim that during the stop she became combative, was thrown to the ground, arrested and charged with “assault on a public servant.”

On July 13, around 9 a.m., before her family could bail her out, Bland was found dead inside a Waller County, Texas, jail cell. Police claim she died from “self-inflicted asphyxiation.” Her family and ...

The video of a McKinney police officer assaulting a 14-year-old Black girl has had millions of views, hundreds of thousands of shares, and its screenshots have formed the backdrop of most articles I have seen online since. While uproar has indeed led to the officer resigning (with pension and benefits), how is it that a video and images of a grown man assaulting an under-aged girl have been watched by so many anti-violence activists and shared by so many advocates? Why is it that “exposing” anti-Black racism comes at the expense of Black women?

In discussing the problems with watching and sharing such brutal videos, it is important not to give the impression that the issue of state violence against Black women at all enjoys ...

The video of a McKinney police officer assaulting a 14-year-old Black girl has had millions of views, hundreds of thousands of shares, and its screenshots have formed the backdrop of most articles I have seen online since. ...